Notes on Tracking Respondents in the Career Development Study, "Entry Into Careers."

Call, Vaughn R. A.; And Others

This monograph relates in considerable detail the procedures and experience of the Career Development Study in the relocation of 6,798 respondents to the first wave of a panel study. Following an introduction discussing the problems related to tracking, the design to track these young people who were high school juniors and seniors in 1965-66 is briefly outlined. The next section describes the development of the tracking strategy. Four studies discovered through a literature search that represented different tracking methodologies are first overviewed. Six major areas in which decisions must be made prior to initiating a panel research design utilizing previously collected time 1 data are then outlined: (1) data documentation, (2) characteristics of the time 1 respondents and their families, (3) time since initial contact, (4) personnel, (5) facilities, and (6) budgets. The next section describes the tracking sequence, consisting of advance notice, mail tracking (parents), mail tracking (respondents), and telephone tracking. Experience in tracking one individual is then recounted. The six principles upon which successful tracking performance is based (planning, personalization, personnel, patience, persistence, perfection) are explicated before actual experiences in locating current addresses for the study respondents are related. Response and cost are discussed. (Correspondence materials are appended.) (YLB)